“Callahan’s one of my best detectives. I wouldn’t have put him on the case if I didn’t believe that. Remember, he found that boy and brought him back to his family safe and sound.”
“But then the kidnapper retaliated,” the reporter said.
“That has no bearing on this case.”
“Saul Berney killed Detective Callahan’s wife and daughter. How can that not impact his abilities?”
As Olivia sucked in a breath at those words, she heard Max do the same.
“Berney allegedly committed the crime,” Huntington clarified. “We were never able to prove that. Callahan’s dealt with that. He’s giving his all to this case. We have all the manpower we can spare doing what we can to bring this girl home. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot to go on right now. Something’s going to turn up sooner or later, and when it does, we’ll break the case wide open.”
“We understand you have a suspect?”
“We’re questioning a couple of people, and that’s all I can tell you at this time. We’ll keep you informed. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.”
Max turned the sound down. She could sense him looking at her and wished she could see the expression on his face. She knew she looked shocked.
“My God,” she said when he said nothing. “How did he…do it?”
When he finally answered, she could tell he wasn’t looking in her direction. “He put a pipe bomb in my wife’s car.” He was working at keeping his voice neutral, but the emotion lurked just under the surface.
“How terrible.”
“It was two years ago.”
“You don’t get over something like that in two years. Maybe never.”
“It’s not a matter of getting over it. You just go on because you have to. Do you want some more tea?”
An obvious deflection.
“I’m fine.” She knew she should let the subject drop. He didn’t want to talk about it, and it was none of her business. But it touched her in a way she couldn’t ignore. “How old was your daughter?”
“Ashley was six.”
Did he see her flinch? So young and innocent. “I’m sorry.” She couldn’t tell if he was wearing a wedding ring, and there was no telling whether it was his dead wife’s or a new wife’s ring if he was. Or why she was even pondering it. Detective Max Callahan was the last man she’d be interested in romantically. They both had way too much baggage between them.
And still, when she’d convinced herself of that, she asked, “Have you remarried?”
His “No” was fast and final. He turned “I Love Lucy” back on, discussion closed.
So he still loved his wife very much. Maybe he was one of those men who never got over their lost loves. Some people never got past the tragedies of their lives. Because she was one of those, she felt an odd affinity toward Max.
That had to stop here and now.
“Your lieutenant said he was questioning some people. Am I one of those people?” She settled back against the desk that served as the command center to her life: phone, notepad, clock, mail.
“I can’t discuss the case with you.”
“Because I’m a suspect.” She pushed away from the desk and crashed right into him. She hadn’t realized he was that close.
His hands automatically went to her shoulders to steady her. “I’m still trying to figure out how you fit into this investigation.”
She couldn’t help think of her earlier suspicion. “I’m not sure if I should even mention this.”
His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly when he asked, “If you know something…”
“I don’t know…well, it’s going to sound crazy.”
He released her shoulders. “Like your being psychically connected to a kidnapped girl.”
“No, not that crazy. I was dating Terry Carlton up until a month ago. We broke up and he’s been having a hard time letting go of the relationship. For the most part, he’s been harmless. He’s never out-and-out threatened me or assaulted me. It’s his persistence that worries me. Phone calls, flowers—”
“Singing telegrams?”
“How did you…oh, when you came by yesterday. Well, yes, he’s been crazy in that way. But now I’m not so sure it’s harmless. I think someone tried to push me into traffic this morning.”
When she lifted her scraped palms, he took her hands in his and traced his thumb around the raspberries. His touch was soothing and sensual at the same time, and she gently tugged her hands free.
He asked, “Did you report this to the police?”
“No, because no one saw anything suspicious. And maybe someone just accidentally bumped into me. I’d rather think that’s what it was. Then later, Terry sent an ‘I’m Sorry’ bouquet. It made me wonder what he was sorry about exactly, and how far he’d go to keep me from being with anyone else. Or get me back. You know, scare me into thinking I need him. He knows about my connection with kidnapped children. In fact, he even called to see if I’d connected with Phaedra Burns.” She shook her head. “I doubt he had anything to do with it. I mean, kidnap a child to get a woman’s attention? That’s just crazy. Forget I mentioned it.”
Of course, Max wouldn’t forget it. He was a cop, trained to investigate anything that might lead to a solution to a case. “Has he given you any indication of being that desperate?”
“Not in any concrete way.”
“Hey, Max!” Rob called from the front door. “You’re all set, man.”
In a low voice, Max asked her, “You going to be all right by yourself?”
“I always am.” She heard weariness in her voice and hoped he hadn’t. “But thanks for asking.” He cared, and that touched her. Maybe because there weren’t many people who did care about her.
And that’s the way she liked it. Life was easier that way.
“Goodbye, Olivia.” As the door closed behind him, she heard him thanking Rob for coming out so fast. Max’s voice was the last to fade. Maybe she was still hearing it in her mind.
She touched her shoulder, still feeling the imprint of his hand. Like the residual humidity left over from a mid-day shower, he clung to her senses. Even his voice echoed in her ears long after he’d left. She was drawn to him for some reason. She wanted to think it was his tragic loss, but she really couldn’t attribute it to that. She’d felt this before she knew about that.
Hopefully they’d find Phaedra soon, and she wouldn’t have to deal with him again.
“You Terry Carlton?” Max asked the man who answered the door, though he recognized him.
“Yeah.” He took in Max’s badge. “Don’t tell me you’re going to arrest me for sending her flowers. Besides, it doesn’t count when she didn’t even accept them.”
“Can I come in for a minute? I just want to ask you a few questions.”
Terry stepped back as he ran his hand through his curly, shoulder-length hair. “Sure, man.” He gestured to a white sofa and dropped down into a matching recliner.
The sofa, it turned out, was covered in fake fur. Max held back his grimace and surveyed the rest of the house. It was large, but sparsely furnished. A few contemporary pieces here and there and lots of room for more. Nothing suspicious about the house or Carlton’s behavior.
“What were you sorry for?”
Carlton reached for a picture frame on the end table. “I think I startled her yesterday. I just happened to see her out walking, and I went up and talked to her.” He ran his finger over a picture of Olivia. “No crime in that.”
“It is a crime when she’s placed a no-contact order against you. What about today?”
“I haven’t seen her today.”
Max casually stood and meandered toward the dining area. “Nice place.” He took the opportunity to scan the back rooms and listen for anything out of the ordinary. He wasn’t sure what to make of Olivia’s story about being pushed, or her thought that Terry might have taken the girl to get her attention. For all he knew, they could be working together, but he doubt
ed that. “Why Olivia?” he asked, walking back to the living room.
“I know what you’re thinking. Why does a guy who can have any woman he wants go after a woman who doesn’t want him around?” He shook his head, looking at the picture. “There’s something about her. She’s soft, delicate. I just want to protect her from the world.”
“Are we talking about the same Olivia Howe?” But they were. The woman in the photograph was definitely Olivia.
Carlton’s mouth lifted in a half-smile. “I was her first lover. And I intend to be her last. Her only. She’ll come around.”
Max headed toward the front door. Nothing that would help him find Phaedra there. “Let her come around in her own time.”
Carlton’s smile turned smug. “I was taught that persistence pays off. That’s how I got to the NFL.” He rubbed his knee. “That’s how I’m going to get back. And that’s how I’m going to win that woman back. Without breaking the law, of course.”
“Be sure that you don’t. Thanks for your time.”
The sun glinted off Max’s windshield as he approached his car. His sunglasses were sitting on the seat. When he picked them up, they were hotter than a barbeque briquette. He flung them back on the seat with a curse and called Sam. “How did you know I wasn’t going to like the news broadcast?”
“Sorry, buddy. That’s the last thing you need, all that dredged up again. When the Burnses’ publicist arranged for a last-minute spot, the television station called Huntington so they could run his comment afterward.”
It meant a lot that Huntington believed in him.
“Did you get anything out of the blind woman?” Sam asked.
“Her name is Olivia, and no, I got nothing.” Nothing he’d tell Sam, anyway. He’d never give credence to her vision, and she hadn’t given them anything concrete anyway. “She says she worked with a Captain Jack Richards on the Columbus, Ohio police force, helped him with some cases. I’m going to put in a call and see if her story pans out.”
“Well, so far she hasn’t been a great deal of help. Half the guys at the station think she’s nuts. The other half thinks she’s involved. I vote for both. Did you ask her about Burns?”
“She says she doesn’t know him.” He relayed her suspicion about Carlton and his subsequent conversation. “The guy might be an obsessed jerk, but he doesn’t strike me as deranged.” Max tried to pick up the sunglasses again and discovered the metal frame was bent.
“What about her blindness? She given herself away yet?”
He tried to unbend the frame and broke off the arm. “If she’s faking it, she’s damn good.”
“Women are the best actresses in the world,” Sam said in an uncharacteristically bitter voice. He cleared his throat. “All I’m saying is, don’t buy into her act.”
Max tossed the broken glasses in the back seat. “I’m not buying into anything. What do you have?”
“We just got a break in the case. We know who took the kid.”
“And you waited this long to tell me? Who is it, already?”
“Santa Claus.”
Max let loose with an expletive. “Funny.”
“No, seriously. Remember we saw Santa walking in on the videotape. Well, guess what? That wasn’t the guy the store hired to play the great giver of gifts. Our people matched up everyone on the tape. They didn’t catch it the first time, because Claude Fernley walked in with a group of people and kind of blended in. If you’ll remember, he’s a little spit of a guy. Probably needs plenty of padding for his costume.”
“Claude Fernley. Isn’t he the guy who played Santa?”
“Yeah, but he’s not our guy. See, our folks saw Santa walking in and then we had cleared Claude and had him on the list of those who left the store. At first, they didn’t come up with any extra people. They went through the tapes again and that’s when they saw Claude. It turns out that the guy walking in wearing the suit never left. Not out the front door, anyway.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“There’s just something sick about Santa abducting a kid.”
CHAPTER 8
He knocked on her apartment door. There was only a slight wariness to her voice when she asked, “Who is it?”
“Officer Bill Williams, Palomera Police Department. I’d like to have a word with you about the Burns case.” His southern accent wrapped around his words as snug as a rubber glove.
She opened the door. “Yes?” Her dog pushed its nose through the opening.
“Miss Howe?” he asked, though he knew it was Olivia. When she nodded, he said, “I work with Detectives Callahan and O’Reilly. I heard about your, uh, special skills and wanted to talk to you.”
Her eyebrows furrowed at the words special skills. “Can I feel your badge?”
He held it out for her tactile inspection.
“I’m not sure what you mean by special skills.”
“Your psychic connection to the girl.”
Her shoulders sagged a little at that. “I suppose everyone at the police station knows about me.”
He tempered his words with soft laughter. “Well, when you have a woman trying to warn security about a missing girl who isn’t missing yet, it does get our attention.”
Her mouth quirked. “I suppose.”
“Can we talk inside?”
After a slight hesitation, she said, “Come in.”
She gestured toward the leather couch and sank into the nearby chair.
He stepped around the dog that was still looking at him and sat on the couch. “There’s something you should know about me. I have special skills, too.”
“You’re psychic?”
“I know exactly why you don’t want everyone knowing about your involvement, because I’ve been there. I try to hide it when I know things I shouldn’t, try to explain away slips of the tongue.” Empathy softened her expression, so he forged on. “It’s even harder when you’re a cop. You can only explain so many things as hunches. How can you explain knowing what a killer is thinking?”
She leaned forward. “You connect to the killer’s mind?”
He made his words come out thick, as though each was painful. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with.” He let a suitable pause go by. “I understand you’re connected to the kidnapped girl.”
“Yes. I always connect to the victims. Probably because I was a victim once. I relate to them on more than one level.”
“Well, I certainly don’t relate to a murderer or a child molester.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
He touched her hand, establishing physical contact. “I know you didn’t. Sorry, I can be a little touchy. I shouldn’t feel that way with you, of all people. We’re on the same side.” He gave her hand a squeeze before releasing it. He’d put himself on the defensive and hopefully had drawn her in a little closer. “We understand each other.”
She settled more comfortably into the chair, but still leaned toward him. “Are you saying that you’ve connected to the man who took Phaedra Burns?”
“I…I think so. Since her kidnapping, I’ve been getting these images. A large room with concrete floors and green walls. I see the girl, too. She’s…well, I hate to even say it. But I think she’s in a cage.”
He watched Olivia’s face light up. “Yes, that’s what I’ve seen, too. So maybe that part is real.”
“Real?”
She waved that away. “I saw the cage. And…” She ran her fingers down the length of her hair. “Well, it’s mostly been flashes. Quick glimpses, rushes of her panic and fear. That’s what triggers the connection, when her emotions spike.”
“Interesting. What I get seems to be random. Maybe there’s a trigger I haven’t figured out yet. Can you see the guy?”
She shook her head. “A light behind him casts him in shadow. And he wears a cap.”
She had that much right. Then again, she had a lot right.
He said, “I feel a lot of rage
coming from him. It’s aimed at the girl.”
“Does he know her?” Olivia asked.
“I don’t think so. She represents something he despises.” The dog was sitting at her feet, and it still looked at him suspiciously. Its ears were even tilted back.
Olivia said, “And yet, he brings her food. Fast food, orange juice.”
“He wants to keep her alive.”
“But for what purpose?”
“A sacrifice,” he said in a low voice. “She’s going to be sacrificed.”
She shivered. “Oh, God. But why?”
“Maybe he’s a religious fanatic. I haven’t gotten enough from him to figure him out. I was hoping we could work together, pull our skills and find her. I want you to be our mouthpiece, Olivia. May I call you Olivia? I feel like we’ve got a bond, you and I.” He touched her hand briefly to punctuate those words. To his relief, she squeezed back.
Her expression was open, trusting. “Yes, you can call me Olivia.”
“Call me Bill.”
“What do you mean, you want me to be the mouthpiece?”
“If I come in knowing things…well, I could hurt my career. I’ve already been passed over for several promotions because the guys in the department think I’m strange. They wouldn’t want one of their own to be known as one of those weirdo psychics. You know how cops can be.”
Olivia nodded. “O’Reilly made it more than clear he didn’t believe me.”
“O’Reilly doesn’t believe in anything out of the ordinary. He’s a real hard-ass. What about Callahan?”
“He’s at least willing to listen.”
“Unfortunately, O’Reilly’s attitude is the prevailing one at the station. Psychic clues are disregarded, and if they were to come from a cop, well, I’d lose the respect of the guys and my superiors.” He leaned forward, close to her. “You can’t imagine how glad I was to hear about you. I knew you’d understand. That you’d help me.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to find Phaedra.”
“I thought you would. And if you’re thinking that I want to be the one to crack the case and get the glory, you’re wrong. In fact, if anyone finds out I’m talking to you, it could be my job. Some of the officers and detectives are still working on the Burns case, but I’m not. Maybe if I’m careful about revealing my special skills, I’ll move up someday. I need your word that you won’t say anything about my talking to you.”
Blindsight [Now You See Me] (Romantic Suspense) Page 9